The killer told police he stuffed his 27-year-old wife’s body into a suitcase and buried her in a three-foot deep ditch.

Her devastated cousin Kim Downes-Szmyglewska yesterday described Clack as a “violent bully” and said she warned Nixiann against going to Grenada with him. She added: “I had never liked Alex. I didn’t want them to get married. He was a control freak.

“He would batter Nixiann and just three weeks before the murder
he broke her arm. She was scared of him and too scared to tell police. I swapped messages with her the night before she was murdered. She told me she and Alex were having problems with their marriage and that they had split up. I am now worried Alex went through her phone and saw that text message and that’s what prompted him to murder her.”

“When police found her she had a broken jaw, injuries to her ribs. She was strangled and had blunt force injuries. Phoebe was there. He killed Nixiann in front of his daughter.”

The 48-year-old said her daughter died on the couple’s fifth wedding anniversary.

She added: “He was evil. He tried to control everything she did. I think she had enough and was going to leave him and that’s why he did it. He once told her if she left him he would kill us all one by one.” Phoebe is being cared for by Linda. Nixiann, who lived in St George’s, was reported missing last Tuesday after she failed to drop off her daughter at Linda’s home in St Marks.

Grenada police said: “Mr Clack confessed to the crime and led police to the body.”

There were claims Clack had been having an affair with a 17-year-old girl. Police said he did not admit to the fling but a girl of 17 was quizzed over the murder and later released.

It was also alleged the killer had booked a flight to Jamaica after his wife vanished.

He and Nixiann ran a ­recruitment firm called Horizon Temp Agency in St George’s.

Nixiann was born and brought up in Grenada but sent to the UK at 12 to get a good education. She lived with Kim and an aunt in Peckham, South East London. She returned to Grenada with Clack in 2009.

Mum-of-three Kim claimed he was desperate to leave the UK because police wanted to quiz him over an alleged sex assault on a child. Clack appeared before magistrates on Monday charged with his wife’s murder. He is due back in court on July 10.